This book is about numbers and their use in enumeration, counting, and calculation in Japanese, in everyday life, in sciences, and in geography. It also provides a gateway to the understanding of the Japanese language, culture, and organization. In addition, the book gives an introduction to Japanese grammar, place names, proverbs, idioms, sayings, and poetry.

The authors of the book are Dr. Bird, a professor of chemical engineering from the U.S.A., and a former student from his department, Dr. Mezaki. They have interacted for decades after first meeting in the 1950s. Dr. Mezaki has worked in several areas of applied chemistry and chemical engineering, and Dr. Bird has had the study of technical Japanese as a hobby since 1960.

This book is an excellent example of international cooperation that not only brings people together, but inspires them to produce for us this marvelous book, which is a guide for both technical and nontechnical people to learn about the subject of ways of human perceptions that differ from place to place but serve similar needs.

The book may be useful for collateral reading in courses in first- and second-year Japanese. Considering the type, composition, and contents of the book, it is difficult to say who does not need it.

R. BYRON BIRD has been a Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1953. He is well known as the senior author of Transport Phenomena, a standard chemical engineering textbook, and the monograph Dynamics of Polymeric Liquids. He has taught twice at the Technical University in Delft in Holland, and has coauthored two Dutch literary readers. In Japan, he has taught at Kyoto and Nagoya Universities, and has coauthored three books on technical Japanese translation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, as well as a recipient of the National Medal of Science.

REIJI MEZAKI received his B.S. in Industrial Chemistry from Kyoto University and his Ph. D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin. After several years of teaching service at Yale University and New York University, he worked for Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, Mitsubishi Research Institute, and the University of Tokyo as a research staff member in frontier and essential areas of applied chemistry and chemical engineering. They include computer-assisted optimization of chemical processes and database construction of polymers and nanocomposites. Presently he is a visiting researcher at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.